MUMBAI: Jacob Bethel fought hard, like a swimmer on his way to the finish line, but he knew he just wasn’t enough. The left-hander lay face down on the pitch and Wankhede exploded as the Indian players celebrated around him. This exit took India across the finish line in the semi-final against England.
The Three Lions’ pursuit didn’t begin until Bethel reached the crease, forcing the men in blue to huddle. The 22-year-old spent 85 minutes on the wicket, showing that England are developing him into an all-rounder since his debut in 2024. Incidentally, Royal Challengers Bangalore paid Rs 2.6 Cr for him in the 2025 IPL auction. At the age of 21, he became the youngest overseas player to make his IPL debut.
Besser put England at the mercy of the odds with a score of 38/2. The guerrilla crowd roared loudly. A lot of people would cringe given the stage and the pressure, but going against the odds is what separates the great from the average.
Besser stepped up, cut through the noise, created his own bubble and showed his cricketing intelligence on the field to create a tremor in the Indian camp before England fell seven runs short of the target of 254 runs.
Captain Harry Brooke was full of praise for the youngster, whom he wants to play with “for a long time”. “He did a really good job in that inning in a high-pressure situation,” Brook said. “He’s in his own bubble and it’s a fantastic feeling (when it happens). You feel like you can almost hit six balls and tonight he got it in one of those innings. It was a ridiculous knock. He should be very proud of what he did tonight. He’s going to be a very good player for England in the long run.”
Mumbai’s batting meant Besser became the first batsman to score first-class, A-grade and T20 centuries at the international level. All of this has come within the past seven months. He crossed the triple-digit mark in ODIs for the first time with an 82-ball 110 against South Africa at Southampton in September 2025. Then came his 265-ball Test century of 154 in the last Ashes Test against Australia at the SCG in January this year, before making his maiden T20I ton on Thursday.
“I don’t think they are comparable (Testton in Sydney and T20I in Mumbai). The skills and mindset are different, but both ended in defeat. It’s a strange feeling,” said Besser, who will return to India for RCB in a few days. “Cricket is a brutal game because individual performance doesn’t always translate into team performance. Both are tough pills to swallow, but I’m very proud of both and the way I coped with both bats.”
When Bethell was selected for the England squad, Brendan McCullum and his team-mates were criticized because he had not scored a century in any format of the game domestically. But the Barbados-born batsman made his bat react to the noise.
“I never really paid attention to the discussion around these things (no centuries in domestic cricket). I was always confident that I could do it and now that it’s been done, hopefully I can add to my scoring tally in all three formats of the game,” Besser said after becoming the fourth England player after Jos Buttler, David Malan and Brooke to score centuries in all three international formats.
